What Zac has done that Marvin couldn't

[*SHRacerX*]

(01-23-2023, 03:23 PM)jj22 Wrote: In the AFCN you have to have some "dog" as the young kids say. You can't have a team full of choir boys as some old heads would say. Marvin sacrificed character for that "dog" and while it gave us the edge we needed to have some bite against some of the other "dogs" in the AFCN, we paid a heavy price for it with penalties, arrests, and emotional meltdowns.

Zac has somehow gotten players with edge and fight, without the character flaws. This team is full of choir boys, but yesterday showed me they have bark AND bite to go along with high character.

This team seems finesse, but somehow they aren't. They are tough and physical, without all the character sacrifices that haunted us in the past. Zac and the Front Office has done a great job walking that thin line this new era.

Some Marv apologists might take offense to this, and FWIW, I was a big supporter of Marv, but here are some huge differences:

Marv never embraced anything like next gen stats, where ZT has a TEAM that formulates a plan for almost every situation BEFORE the season even started.

Marv was HORRIBLE at two minute offense, the time before and after the half, where ZT is one of the best.

Marv never put the foot on the throat, but would try to protect a one score lead for two quarters, exhausting your defense.

Marv also was old-school in camp and weekly practices and was not as dialed in on health of his team, where ZT has set the standard for players being healthy and energetic heading in to the postseason....not limping in and looking flat in the first playoff game EVERY DAMN TIME.

All that notwithstanding, Marv had a bigger hurdle to leap in terms of culture change and ownership helping him with free agency.  ZT has changed the culture of the team and the entire organization, but I don't know if he would have been able to do it without Marv chipping away at the old guard ways. 

I will always be grateful to Marv for that, but the game had passed him by and he didn't adapt.